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Raw 911 tape: home invasion and double murder

sha-ul

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because drugs never hurt anybody.... if you were just talking organics...maybe, but not the artificial compounds.


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Video: CPS Under Fire For Case[align=center]MORE INFO[/align] Father Accused Of Eating Child's Eye OutPolice Say Man Appeared To Be On PCPPOSTED: 12:10 pm PDT May 15, 2009UPDATED: 3:20 pm PDT May 22, 2009BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- "It was pretty bizarre," said neighbor Ramon Rodriguez.Rodriguez was one of the first to discover 34-year-old Angelo Mendoza on April 28 after police said Mendoza bit an eyeball out of his 4-year-old son's face and ate it."The guy was crazy. Real bug-eyed; he had to be on drugs," said Rodriguez.Court documents said neighbors checked on Mendoza's son, Angelo Jr., after they noticed the father acting nervously and fleeing from his east Bakersfield apartment in his wheelchair. Inside, they found little Angelo naked and bleeding. Police said the boy had numerous bites to his hands and his eyes were swollen shut. Doctors said the boy's left eye and muscle were completely missing. His other eye was mutilated beyond repair. The boy told them, "My daddy ate my eyes out." Rodriguez said meanwhile Mendoza approached him at a neighbor's vacant house down the street.Rodriguez said the boy's father wheeled himself into the front yard and asked Rodriguez to play with him and a pet dog. He was wearing boxers and a sweater. When Rodriguez refused, Mendoza got off his wheelchair and dragged himself into a back yard, where he found an ax.By then Mendoza had stripped naked. He chained himself to a tree in the back yard and began hacking at his leg with a pickax while yelling incoherently."He told me to look into the sun and pray with him. I was kinda scared for a minute," said Rodriguez.Then Rodriguez jumped on Mendoza and wrestled the ax away."As soon as I grabbed the ax he tried to bite me, and I had to hold him down with my knee. There was dry blood around his mouth. I don't know if it was his own, but I'm pretty sure it was his son's now that I hear the story," said Rodriguez.The police report said Mendoza appeared to be under the influence of PCP. Rodriguez said had he known about little Angelo, the outcome would have been different."I would've just let him cut his leg off. What happened to his son is not right. I would've left him alone," said Rodriguez.Mendoza was arrested on charges of torture, aggravated mayhem, and cruelty to a child. The toddler is now in the custody of Child Protective Services. Mendoza is due in court May 20. His bail is set at $1 million.For fundraising and donation information, visit http://www.imforeverchanged.com. [align=right]Copyright 2009 by TurnTo23.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.[/align]
 

TehGruu

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Jesus christ. Wow, I kind of feel bad at linking the news article now. It seems the topic has gone from one of a sad case that reinforces situational awareness when something seems amiss and the need to be armed to protect one's self and family. I say this yet I now find myself compelled to chime in. Personally, I don't care if a junkie wants to shoot up an OD of junk and die from too much of the heroins. One less gas station attendant as far as I'm concerned. No offense to those that are of sound mind, in school and working, etc. Again, the only people that truly suffer are the innocent with abuses of any kind. Family, children, etc suffer more so than an addict.

I'm not trying to use the "for the children" cop out, but it's true. They can't help it that daddy or mommy is worthless. I don't know though, I just don't know if I want to see a "crack" section in a given store or a specialty shop. Meth is abhorrent. My ex-wife's use of that substance was a major contributing factor in our divorce. She's clean now and a productive member of society now, but that's neither here or now as the damage was done. I can understand the whole pot thing in a way. After all, we can buy booze and a slurpie. Hell, if it was legal I would probably smoke myself on theoccasional weekendand watch The Wall or a Cheech and Chong movie.

However, when/if certain drugs are made legal, where do you draw the line? Who would have the moral authority to make that decision? That's where you get when you start with that line of thinking. Then again, maybe we should just say f**k it and see if Darwin was onto something.

Ok, I'm done.



-Gruu
 

marshaul

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I think many people look at this the wrong way.

Nobody is advocating meth use (except doctors, that is). However, ask yourself what the compelling reason to ban it is? And ask yourself what constitutional authority has ever been granted for government to prohibit drugs? The prohibition of alcohol required a Constitutional Amendment.

OK, so you don't "want" a meth section in your local liquor store. Does that mean you do want gangs on your streets, and little girls murdered because "robbing people involved with drugs is OK" (we know that was the internal justification)? These are the products of prohibition.

It seems to me that the symptoms of the "cure" are far worse than the problem. Do I "want" meth sold in liquor stores? Not really (then again, I don't especially care). However, would I prefer that to armed gangs "slanging" rock? Hell yes.

We may "want" meth to not exist, sort of like the anti-gunners want guns to not exist. But that is impossible. What practical approaches are there?

With guns, we argue that we should take the monopoly of gun ownership away from criminals by arming citizens. Why should we not similarly remove the monopoly on drug profits from criminals by giving those profits to someone -- anyone -- who wants to sell drugs in a noncriminal fashion?
 

protector84

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What so many people fail to realize is that a huge portion of violent crime in one form or another involves the drug trade. You don't see that with alcohol or cigarettes because those substances are legal. I've always supported all drugs being legalized. The reason is that it is not the government's job to force safety on adult citizens nor is it constitutional. If someone is on a drug and is out of control (driving intoxicated, robbing people, beating their wife and children, etc.) then there are already existing laws to deal with that. However, for the government to dictate what adults can or cannot consume is wrong, absurd, and tyrannical. It comes down to the "protect us from ourselves" mentality. Additionally, it is a slippery slope. Methcan beharmful but there are plently of people who have tried it and not become addicts or committed crimes. McDonald'scan beharmful, televisioncan beharmful, and religion can be harmful so should the government also ban those things? Keep the government out of the private lives of citizens and you have less problems. If people want to get screwed up on meth, fine! Then when they run into armed citizens and try to rob them, those armed citizens will take care of the problem without any government intervention required. Problem solved!
 

JT

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protector84 wrote:
What so many people fail to realize is that a huge portion of violent crime in one form or another involves the drug trade. You don't see that with alcohol or cigarettes because those substances are legal.
This thread has really gotten off track but the violent crime associated with drug abuse and trafficking won't just magically go away if it is legalized. I have no doubt that,if our culture continues on our present course, you guys will one day get your wish. I don't look forward to seeing the consequences. Who knows? Maybe by thatday police response time will improve.
 

architect

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JT wrote:
This thread has really gotten off track
Yes. However it does illustrate a tie in that seems to escape some. To my mind, it makes no more sense to blame drugs for antisocial actions than it does to blame firearms. Drugs influence behaviour, they don't cause it.
 

protector84

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It is on track just as the previous post mentioned. Our society has been led to believe that people aren't responsible for their mistakes. Therefore, when people cannot control themselves, instead of blaming themselves (the true cause of the problem), they either blame someone else or an inanimate object. A firearm or an intoxicating drug are both inanimate objects. Their presence may influence behavior but they cannot cause behavior by themselves. A husband and a wife fighting in a rage with a loaded gun sitting between them provides a strong chance that one of them would pick it up and use it. Anti-gun advocates therefore argue that the gun shouldn't have been there in the first place thereby ascribing the fault to the inanimate product instead of the spousal abuse which was the problem in the first place. Then after one of them kills the other they find out that one of them was on say cocaine so now it was the cocaine's fault that one of them was crazy and they both had no money. So there is the whole anti-drug debate. Again, don't blame the actions of the people. The fact is that the individual chose to pick up the cocaine and then chose to pick up the gun. Drugs cannot make people do them nor can guns make people use them but that is what people are led to believe. None of this is coincidental as it is to a degree a conspiracy to promote government getting more and more in control. People can no longer think for themselves, handle themselves, control themselves, etc. so we need more laws, more cops, and more government to do it for them.
 

JT

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protector84 wrote:
It is on track just as the previous post mentioned. Our society has been led to believe that people aren't responsible for their mistakes.
WhenI said it had gotten off track I was referring to the fact that it started about aself defense (ie, "True tales of Self defense") and has degenerated to anadvocacy thread for drug legalization. I agree that society is becoming more prone to blame its failures on others but law, properly applied, is about society holding people responsible for their actions that are harmful to the rightsothers or destructive to society as a whole. Do I agree that the so called "war on drugs" has been largely ineffective? Yes I do but for the same reason that the myriad of guns laws we have on the books are ineffective.
 

marshaul

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architect wrote:
JT wrote:
This thread has really gotten off track
Yes. However it does illustrate a tie in that seems to escape some. To my mind, it makes no more sense to blame drugs for antisocial actions than it does to blame firearms. Drugs influence behaviour, they don't cause it.
Exactly.

It certainly is (albeit tangentially) on-topic.
 

marshaul

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JT wrote:
...the violent crime associated with drug abuse and trafficking won't just magically go away if it is legalized.
When was the last time two liquor stores got in a shootout in the street over territory, or any other issue of competition?

While you're thinking about that, I'd like to mention a name: Al Capone.
 

JT

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marshaul wrote:
When was the last time two liquor stores got in a shootout in the street over territory, or any other issue of competition?

While you're thinking about that, I'd like to mention a name: Al Capone.

I understand the hypocrisy of legalized alcoholand personally I would love it if nobody in our culture drank booze in any form.The problem with your arguement howeveris that you apparently assume alcoholic beverages and illicit drugs and the cultures associated with them areequal. They aren't.Al Capone wasn't made a gangster by prohibition and bootlegging liquor wasn't the extent or cause of all his crimes.The fact that there was a demand for bootleg liquor during prohibition and there is a demand for illegal drugs now is the only valid parallel. The individual andsocial impact of the two are not the same.

I know that you and Iaren't likely to agree soI won't continue the dialog onlegalizing drugsand you can have the last word. Thankfully we can agree that it was good that the woman was able to both have and use a fiream to defend herself. I appreciate being able to have civil discussion.
 

marshaul

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Well, Al Capone might have had other criminal ventures, but that's missing the obvious point. Nobody disputes the fact that prohibition caused addition crime, i.e. people like Al Capone now had new business opportunities. When prohibition ended, the crime associated with bootlegging did end, overnight.

Organized crime didn't end completely, and eventually it moved into drugs. This is true. However, that doesn't change the fact that the repeal of prohibition did "magically" reduce violent crime spurred by bootlegging by a huge degree, overnight. Why wouldn't that correspond with other drugs?

And, it's not the "only valid parallel". Myth aside, alcohol is a drug, and not an especially great one. Alcohol abuse does the same things to people that any other drug abuse can and will. For every functional alcoholic you know, think of the bum on the street that nobody knows because he drank his life away. They're the crackheads of alcohol.

As for hypocrisy, I'm not sure why you would have people behave any certain way. Who cares if some people drink and enjoy themselves? I drink a beer occasionally. Why should society concern itself with that fact?

If anything, personifying drugs by giving them credit for human action is the root cause of the societal notion that behavior can explained, if not excused, by drug use. Myself, I don't care what drugs a person is on, because I've seen people act non-aggressively under the influence of every drug under the sun. I only care whether a person aggresses against myself or another. Thus I see very little reason for considering drug use when analyzing the behavior of another (although I do feel drug use can be considered for sentence enhancements if an actual crime has been committed). The behavior stands on its own merit.
 

compmanio365

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"If you live in a free country, you have the right to put anything you want into your own body. Anything else, is bull@#$%."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMdFiw8bZHc <---watch this then think again about this topic of discussion

On the actual topic, this is precisely why I carry, even in my house. I have a rifle ready to fall back to should it be required. It's not paranoia, it's preparedness.
 

shad0wfax

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The things I find interesting from this are:

  • The gunshots aren't nearly as loud on the phone as I would have expected.

  • The victim recalls fuzzy descriptions of 2 of the 3 people but when asked how many came into her home she says 4 or 5 a few times.

  • The 9-1-1 operator actually tells the victim that she has nothing to worry about and it is clearly self-defense before any officers have arrived.

  • The 9-1-1 operator tells the victim "yes, get the gun" when she's not sure if it's the police who have arrived or not.

  • The Border Patrol arrived with the Sheriff's deputies simultaneously.


They're just things I found notable and not necessarily positive or negative.

As far as not choking up, I found myself responding to the entire tape in a very clinical manner. The 9-1-1 operator had a very calming manner of dealing with the stress and I was trying to listen very carefully for all of the details the victim was relating and all of the sounds coming through to the dispatch officer. I was also trying to piece together more of the story from the tape and pay attention to what the victim was not saying as well.

I guess it's like the doctors and nurses at the ER; they see all sorts of nasty trauma and wounds but while they're treating patients, they're focused on treating injuries. The emotions come later.
 

Ironbar

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marshaul wrote:
"Meth" doesn't destroy lives any more than the same drug prescribed in a legal setting does (the same active ingredient in "crystal meth" is legally prescribed all the time, minus impurities). People destroy their own lives.

Or, if anything, street "meth" is less safe than legal methamphetamine, but only because there is no liability applied to illegal "meth lab" manufacturers for making impure and unsafe drugs, whereas legal drug manufacturers are highly regulated. Which is yet another argument to get government out of the unconstitutional business of empowering gangs with prohibition. :quirky

marshul,

You need to do a little more research man. "Legal" methamphetamine has a much different chemical structure, and is used in a much different way than illegally manufactured junk.

While you are correct in that people are ultimately responsible for their own lives, and typically nobody ever forces a person to try meth for the first time, you are absolutely incorrect in that fact that meth does not destroy lives.

Meth is a most addictive drug. More so than heroin and cocaine. Meth acts on the body in ways that coke and heroin do not. While they all have the same type of abuse cycle, (meaning that over time, more and more of the drug is required to produce the same effect),meth has a greater neurotoxicity, and it effects are much more pronounced. People get higher, and crash harder on meth. Eventually the downward spiral causes people to scratch at their skin because they experience phantom "crank bugs", leading to open sores. With enough use, the person can develop tardive diskenesia (involuntary, repetitive movements of the body).

The effect on the people who use meth is one thing. The effect they have on others is another. How many families have been torn apart by meth use? How many people have been robbed or assaulted because of meth use? How many have died because of meth use? How badly has society been affected because of meth use?
 

inbox485

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Not sure why this turned into a debate about drugs but back to the original topic, two thoughts:

1)Have a gun. Have it with you.

2)Nobody is an LEO until you know for sure. I am 100% against no knock warrants and this is why. This is one more example of when people would be better off shooting people that barge into their house even if they are claiming to be police. Anybody can scream police as they force their way in. They can even get body amour, and gear to look like police.

No Knock + Forced Entry = Shoot Till They Stop
 

nobucks

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This is esp. a problem if you or your family members are not into anything illegal. I think it was in Denver a year or two ago that the cops served a no-knock warrant on an apartment and accidentally hit the innocent neighbor and killed him. You can read about that one, plus a few others on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_knock_warrant

A bad guy, yelling, "Police!" when he enters could buy him the drop on the homeowner. I also recall reading in the "Armed Citizen" section of the American Rifleman about a homeowner who answered a knock on his door claiming to be police, but refused to believe them because he heard them talking like gangbangers outside his home, so he armed himself and fought them off.

If you have no reason to think the police would have a reason to raid your house, there's little reason to think they really are cops. On the flip side, undercover cops have been shot by uniformed cops because they were in a bad place, holding a weapon.

Joel
 
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